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Lovers’ Almanac
Poems by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell
Lovers’ Almanac
Copyright © 2015 Angela Alaimo O’Donnell. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Resource Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
ISBN 13: 978–1-4982–1840-5
EISBN 13: 978-1-4982-1841-2
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
For Brennan
Late, late yestreen I saw the new moon, with the old moon in her arms.
—“Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence”
For we have seen on our way and fallen in love
with the world that will pass in a twinkling.
—Czeslaw Milosz
Late have I loved you
Beauty so old and so new
Late have I loved you.
—St. Augustine
Love never fails.
—St. Paul
Acknowledgments
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publications in which some of these poems have appeared or are forthcoming:
Alabama Literary Review, “On Finding a Copy of The Wellfleet Whale in Wellfleet”
“The Song of Things”
Christian Century, “On Botticelli’s Annunciation”
“For Shadowment: Villanelle for the Solstice”
“The Hidden Life”
“The year begins & love hides hushed”
Mezzo Cammin, “On Edward Hopper’s ‘A Woman in the Sun’”
“Betrayal” (formerly, “Diagnosis: Human”)
“Anniversary Poem”
“Homing”
“Monosyllabics”
Post Road, “Reading Crusoe on the Metro North”
The Same, “Eurydice’s Song”
“In-somnia”
“Wardrobe Advice”
Spiritus, “Hawk in the Bronx”
String Poet, “Un-fallen”
Valparaiso Poetry Review, “Sonnet for St. Sylvia”
Vineyards, “August 3rd & the Feast of St. Flannery”
Windhover, “Angelus”
“Shine”
Lovers’ Almanac:
A Sonnet Sequence
January
Where do you want to be? she asked.
Here with you, he answered.
Here in the brusque wind
the rattle of the rafters
of our wood white house.
Here in the clutch of winter,
the month young with sun,
sparse as gleaned fields.
Here watching the cherry weep,
waiting for April to come.
Here where the lean shadows fast,
the blown birds beckon.
Where do you want to be? he asked.
Here with you, I reckon.
February
Here with you I reckon
I can cross the lost world
and still keep my self, she said.
Her mother had been dead
two years the first day
of the Heart Month,
her birth month
now become her dearth month.
It never goes away,
she said and sighed—
then turned back to earth
and his bright face
as if all her worth
lay in his embrace.
March
She lay in his embrace
and he in hers
when the world broke in.
The ground woke again
thrust new shoots into outer air.
She rose, washed her hair,
and both became young again.
They walked the river walk
as king and queen.
She missed
